Oak Creek and Rains Apartments will not be options in the autumn quarter Housing Draw due to the opening of a new three-story dorm being built at Manzanita Park.

Rodger Whitney, the Executive Director of R&DE Student Housing and Chief Housing Officer, wrote in an email to The Daily that the new complex at Manzanita Park, tentatively identified as the Humanities Theme Residence until the facility name is finalized, will provide housing for 125 upperclassmen. The humanities dorm is the first major undergraduate residence to be constructed in 20 years. Whitney does not see a need to assign undergraduates to Oak Creek or Rains.

“It is always our goal to assign undergraduate students to traditional undergraduate communities on campus,” Whitney said.

According to Whitney, additional options overseas and at Stanford in New York will reduce the number of students seeking accommodations for next autumn. However, some students may be assigned to Oak Creek in the summer and in the winter quarter “due to the higher numbers of total eligible undergraduate students on campus,” Whitney said.

Oak Creek and Rains are primarily graduate residence complexes that attract students looking for apartment-style options. While some undergraduates in Oak Creek find the experience isolating, Noelle Herring ‘16 found that living in Oak Creek allows her “to take on greater responsibilities and more greatly identify with the world outside Stanford.” She shares a one-bedroom apartment with a teammate on the sailing team.

“I know I will have to readapt to dorm life next year, and I’m not particularly looking forward to that,” Herring said. “While I’m more distanced from the undergraduate community at Stanford, I think this distance has been incredibly healthy. I think returning to the dorms will be a step backwards for me, particularly in terms of maturity.”

Contact Alexandra Nguyen-Phuc at nguyenphuc ‘at’ stanford.edu.